2010-08-25
Explanation
This comic satirizes the absurdity of arguments couples have about whose name goes on mail. The opening panel shows a letter addressed to "Mr. & Mrs. Stu Jennings." A woman (presumably the wife) is upset, saying "Dammit! I spent 6 years getting a PhD! Why does YOUR name go on letters to us?" Her husband responds with an equally absurd claim: "Yeah, well I spent 36 years carefully preserving my penis! Does that mean NOTHING?"
The argument escalates from there in increasingly ridiculous fashion. She counters, "I spent 36 years with a vagina. What's your point?" He replies, "Oh, yeah, like penis bandits are gonna cut off your VAGINA. That doesn't even make sense, Barbara." The husband has apparently invented an imaginary threat -- "penis bandits" -- to justify why his genital preservation is a greater accomplishment than her academic credentials. She demands he tell his friends to put her name on their letters, and he objects: "And let their guard down for the penis bandits?" She finally insists with a firm "JUST DO IT." He grudgingly agrees but then immediately turns to a friend and says, "Hey, Ted, you know how women are irrational?" -- dismissing her entirely reasonable request as female irrationality when he was the one making nonsensical arguments about penis bandits.
The votey panel shows a scene in bed where someone asks the woman, "Why are you up at midnight?" and she replies, "The internet needs dick jokes." This is a meta, self-referential gag -- Zach Weinersmith acknowledging (through the character) that the entire comic was essentially an elaborate setup for genital humor, written late at night because the internet demands such content.